You were throwing your shoes right up over the wire
You were rolling out Easy Bake Ovens and tires
Another whole day on the Bucks County plain
Clouds rolling in, it’s feeling like rain
Back in the yards and the woods by the pool
The leaves were on fire when I came home from school
Singing a song that I wrote in myself
Singing that I could be something else

You were throwing your shoes right up over the wire
I was sitting there watching on half-buried tires
Scratching on sidewalks with fingers and stone
Waiting for time, feeling alone
Taking out pins in the cushions inside
The rain falling down on the telephone wire
Falling farther and farther away

Those were the days of the model airplanes
Shooting up rockets for neighborhood fame
You on the ground, the remote in your hand
I was sinking on down, my feet in the sand
The rock and roll babysitter’s tales
Of nights with the boys running off of the rails
They’d spend the whole night on abandoned farms
Burning up in each other’s arms

You were throwing your shoes right up over the wire
You were setting those Easy Bake Ovens on fire
I was carving my name on a chalkboard with nails
Waiting for somebody else to be there
Outside, the dim suburban homes
With their lawns full of ashtrays and their buckets of phones
Ringing off mothers in houses all day

Back then we had to be cool
But nobody taught me the rules
So I just wrote it all down
On the inside of my fast food paperboard crown
Riding bikes before I learned about brakes
Around and around those cul-de-sac lanes
The teens rolling by in their giant green cars
Driving like rain, they were kissing like stars

You were throwing your shoes right up over the wire
You were building those Tinkertoy castle empires
Melting your crayons over tables of flame
I was feeling alone, I was feeling insane
Dad took a picture on August the ninth
Of us with the newspaper and the headline
‘Ford Steps Up; Nixon Resigns’